A must for any Ichi freak!

If you are a member of the Ichi cult you may want to invest in this special double-disc "Blood Pack" which is cool as hell! The package is a blood bag filled with movie blood which also contains the 2 discs. The extras have too much Eli Roth, director of those "Hostel" movies (plus some people who I don't even know) raving about "Ichi the Killer". While I appreciate Roth's admiration for director Takashi Miike & trying to get his audience interested, he's becoming too much like Tarentino these days, considering his own opinion as having vast importance! Especially when it comes to talking about movies that are better than anything they've ever done!
BUT for me, it was worth buying the movie again for a fantastic behind-the-scenes documentary PLUS interesting interviews with the cast, producer & director. If you love "Ichi the Killer" enough to watch it over & over, these are extras you won't want to miss! Ichi is not for everybody. But once you get past the initial shocking violence which is about as far as most people get, there's a story & set of characters unlike any you've ever seen in any movie, which is why I recommend repeat viewings. Also you'll pick up pieces of the plot you may have missed the first time or two. Every time I watch it, I discover something new. Miike is fiercely original and "Ichi the Killer" is quite possibly his best!

Good Movie, Bad Package!

Ok, if you haven’t seen Ichi before, I've gotta say its vary, vary violent and definitely not for the weak of constitution! But it is a real good flick if you've got the stomach for it(the Title rises out of spoodge, A man is cut in half with dynamite precision, and a gangster cuts his own tongue out with a Kanata, just to name a few points of "interest") this is a "uncut" edition so if you've only seen the cheap discount bin DVD I'd definitely pick it up. their are some issues with packaging though, the blood bag is made from a vary cheap plastic (the kind that real hospitals use!!!) ant it gets vary sticky an tight if not kept at optimum temperature, also the bag is in essence a GOREafied envelope so taking the disks in and out may scuff (or even crack!!!) the disk (so you might want spring for a small clear double case or something). Also the special features need some tweaking, Eli Roth can be a real pud at times (was Quentin Tarantino just not available or is he to expensive, I know for a fact that he's buddies with Takashi Miike), He knows little to nothing about good movies(and what he knows he learned he got from the Q man, that’s why I think he's better suited!) but aside from some annoying F-class Director (and B-class actor!) spouting off like a twit, the making of film is real good (the commentary by Miike is quite insightful) and cult of Ichi documentary is amazing (Tony Timpone Want's MOAR Blood!) its just all so good! but I could drone on for hours about this film and all it's great features, but remember this movie is not for weak and if your easily offended...Get STUFT, Gooday!

Ichi The Killer

Pretty good Japanese yakuza flick with some Kill Bill-ish moments.
It's the story of a newly indicted yakuza boss looking for the people who were involved in the disappearance of the top boss.
If you are a fan of slash-em-up flicks, this one is a goody.
Lots of violence, copious blood and a killer cool psycho-killer named Ichi who when provoked, cries like a baby and unleashes a wrath on his tormentors like you've never seen!
Lots of very strange unique ways of getting people to fess-up in this movie as well as lots of action and many tongue-in-cheek moments.
The special effects were either amazing (the guy on the cover <Kakihara> of the DVD and what he can do with his mouth) or low budget, as if they were running out of money towards the end of filming and just threw fake blood around a room of bodies.
However, what special effects there were held my attention.
The DVD has an English and Japanese language selection as well as subtitles in both.

Don't do unto others....

You know that old biblical saying "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you"? Well, after you see this movie, you will always have to add "Unless you happen to be a masochistic weirdo, then don't" to the end of that saying.
It's true that this is an extremely gory movie, but the gore is so unrealistically stylized that I didn't really find it disturbing. Even though I couldn't properly say I "liked" the characters (they were all pretty despicable) I thought that even the more minor characters like Karen were intriguing. And the way everything in the film was shot, and the lighting, and the way the film was cut up created a fantastic world of dingy beauty.
I highly recommend you buy this film, because it's one of those films you can watch again and again and find something new each time.

Stylish, violent....a classic.

Some movies are incredibly violent. Others are real cool. It's hard to find one that can fit into both categories, however, Ichi the Killer does just that, and does it extremely well. Think of it like Kill Bill, just without the empty Hollywood flair and with actual gruesome scenes. The characters are actually very complex, each having their interweaving reasons for wanting to find Boss Anjo. Not a mindless gore flick by any means!